The invention is based on a priority application EP01440279.6 which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention concerns a method for operating a telecommunications network, a service agent for the same and a network management system, equipped with the latter, particularly in the form of at least one computer of a network management system, or a user interface module, for the same.
When events occur, network elements of a telecommunications network, for example, switching centres, routers, network services or the like, send event messages, in the form of event signals, to a network management system which manages them. The event signals concern, for example, a fault in the respective network element, the exceeding of a limiting value or the alteration of the configuration status of the managed network element. In the network management system, the event messages are processed in various ways; for example, they are written into a databank or displayed on a user interface. Generally in such cases, it is common for the event messages to be displayed in the form of lists, which are frequently of a considerable size. This is particularly due to the fact that an event, for example, a fault, initiates numerous secondary events, particularly secondary faults. If, for example, there is a power supply failure in a network element, the network element signals not only the failure of the power supply, but also failures of modules which are dependent on the power supply. If the network element is a switching centre, for example, numerous connections which are operated by the switching centre are also signalled as failed or faulty.
The flood of event messages could be channelled by, for example, having only the important event messages, but not the less important event messages, displayed in an event list. For this, however, an operator of the network management system must specify extensive filter criteria in order to filter the list of event messages so that he ultimately obtains a display of only the most important event messages. This, however, has the disadvantage that the less important event messages, which are possibly dependent on the more important event messages, are suppressed and remain invisible to the operator.
The same problems arise if the event messages are signalled not to a user interface for a human operator but are signalled, for example, to a fault rectification process provided for automatic fault rectification. Its functioning can also be impaired, or even rendered impossible, by a flood of event messages.